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4 Ways to Optimize Your Hiring Process to Find The Perfect Candidate

From logistics to gut instincts, there are many factors that go into employee recruitment. Here are four ways to optimize the hiring process.

Hiring a new employee has never been simple. From logistics to gut instincts, there are many factors that go into the recruitment and hiring process. The added pressure of the Great Recession and the current scarcity of quality talent has only exacerbated the challenges that come with making a new hire.

If you’re writing job descriptions, reviewing resumes, and considering candidates, here are some tips to help you streamline the process and optimize the results.

1. Improve your search parameters.

It’s easy to be sweet and simple with your search parameters. If a manager quits, you need a new manager. If you scale your company, you may need another accountant or salesperson. The problem is, an overly generic approach to recruitment often has a non-obvious and adverse impact on your organization.

Instead, use performance analytics to improve your search parameters and, consequently, the quality of each hire. Two Story points out that AI-driven performance analytics can provide nuanced insights regarding how your team operates and help you engineer a high-performing team. This can help you discover what drives growth and operational excellence in your business.

Properly applied performance analytics can reveal what traits or skills were integral to a position. It also reveals what aspects caused past hires to underperform. This information can hone your hiring strategy, helping you identify not just who is available but the individuals who are best equipped for your job in your enterprise.

2. Be specific but restrained in a job advertisement.

It’s surprising how varied job descriptions and job advertisements can be from one position to the next. Some reps will create elaborate and extensive descriptions of a position and its ideal candidate. Others will be the model of reticence in their explanations. Neither is ideal.

Instead, strive to walk the line between specificity and restraint. Highlight information that is clearly important for a job seeker to know, such as the basic responsibilities or certifications for a role. Also, ensure that you’re not misleading them or setting false expectations.

At the same time, be concise and to the point. For instance, don’t include an impossibly long list of attributes and skills that an “ideal candidate” should possess. That will either turn away quality individuals who lack minor items or cause job seekers to ignore the entire filter.

3. Involve the right people (and no one else).

The hiring process shouldn’t be a one-person show. Nor should it involve your entire leadership team. Before you publish a job advert, make sure you’ve considered who should get involved in vetting and choosing candidates when the time comes.

This will vary depending on different factors. For instance, you’ll probably want a core group of individuals who will oversee the hiring process. Depending on the position in question, this may be enough, or you may need additional support.

If you’re hiring for a unique role, consider if you should consult with anyone else from that area of your business beforehand. If it’s a management or C-suite position, you may even need to go to a third party for help.

As Western Governors University explains, the role of an executive recruiter is to professionally source top talent for leadership positions. Recruiters come with a cost. However, they can also bring tools, strategies, experience, and an established network of candidates. These can shorten and optimize the hiring process.

4. Know how to sell your brand.

The last thing you want to do is optimize everything on your end of the recruitment process only to have a candidate walk away from a job offer. That’s why it’s worth putting some effort into how you present your brand to potential employees, too.

Before you send up a beacon to job seekers that you’re hiring, take some time to review your own position as an employer. Do you have a solid company culture in place? Are your current employees happy? Are you retaining talent or losing it?

If a candidate researches your company and finds that it’s an undesirable place to work, it can undercut your recruitment efforts. This can lead to frustrating dead ends, a longer hiring time, and other inefficiencies as you strive to find a qualified worker who actually wants to work with you.

Hiring isn’t cheap. So make it effective.

Gallup estimates that it costs one and a half to two times a position’s annual salary to make a hire. SHRM adds that 60% of hiring costs consist of “soft costs.” That is costs like the time that various personnel put into the process.

The takeaway here? Hiring is extremely expensive, and you should never take it lightly. As news of layoffs and disruption to staffing continues to gain momentum heading into 2023, leaders should consider their hiring strategies.

Which of the above tips can you integrate into your current recruitment activities to smooth things out and optimize the results? Identify the best improvements. Integrate them as soon as possible to create a hiring process that is better for yourself, your team, your future employees, and of course, your bottom line.

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